The secretary's head tilted judiciously. "I'll see what I can do for you, my lord, but the roya is very plagued with petitioners, mostly relatives of former rebels attempting to intercede for the roya's mercy, which is stretched thin at present." He looked Cazaril up and down. "I think perhaps no one has warned you—the roya has forbid the court to wear mourning for the late Heir of Ibra, as he died in a state of unreconciled rebellion. Only those who wish to cast their defiance in the roya's teeth are wearing that sad garb, and most of them have the presence of mind to do it in, ah, absence. If you do not intend the insult, I suggest you go change before you beg an audience."

Cazaril's brows went up. "Is no one here before me with the news? We rode fast, but I didn't think we had outdistanced it. I do not wear these bruised colors for the Heir of Ibra, but for the Heir of Chalion. Royse Teidez died barely a week ago, suddenly, of an infection."

"Oh," said the secretary, startled. "Oh." He regained his balance smoothly. "My condolences indeed to the House of Chalion, to lose so bright a hope." He hesitated. "Letters from the Royesse Iselle, do you say?"

"Aye." Cazaril added, for good measure, "Roya Orico lies gravely ill, and does not do business, or so it was when we left Cardegoss in haste."

The secretary's mouth opened, and closed. He finally said, "Come with me," and led them to a more comfortable chamber, with a small fire in a corner fireplace. "I'll go see what I can do."

Cazaril lowered himself into a cushioned chair near the gentle glow. Foix took a bench, though Ferda prowled about, frowning in an unfocused fashion at the wall hangings.

"Will they see us, sir?" asked Ferda. "To have ridden all this way, only to be kept waiting on the doorstep like some peddler..."

"Oh, yes. They'll see us." Cazaril smiled slightly, as a breathless servant arrived to offer the travelers wine and the little spiced shortbread cakes, stamped with an Ibran seal, which were a Zagosur specialty.

"Why does this dog have no legs?" Foix inquired, staring a trifle cross-eyed at the indented creature before biting into his cake.

"It is a sea dog. It has paddles in place of paws, and chases fish. They make colonies upon the shore, here and there down the coast toward Darthaca." Cazaril allowed the servant to pour him but a swallow of wine, partly for sobriety, partly to avoid waste; as he'd anticipated, he'd barely wet his lips before the secretary returned.

The man bowed lower than before. "Come this way, if it please you, my lord, gentlemen."

Ferda gulped down his glassful of dark Ibran wine, and Foix brushed crumbs from his white wool vest-cloak. They hastily followed Cazaril and the secretary, who led them up some stairs and across a little arched stone bridge to a newer part of the fortress. After more turnings, they came to a pair of double doors carved with sea creatures in the Roknari style.

These swung open to emit a well-dressed lord, arm in arm with another courtier, complaining, "But I waited five days for this audience! What is this foolery—!"

"You'll just have to wait a little longer, my lord," said the courtier, guiding him off with a firm hand under his elbow.

The secretary bowed Cazaril and the dy Gura brothers inside, and announced their names and ranks.

It was not a throne room, but a less formal receiving chamber, set up for conference, not ceremony. A broad table, roomy enough to spread out maps and documents, occupied one end. The long far wall was pierced with a row of doors with square windowpanes set top to bottom, giving onto a balcony-cum-battlement that in turn overlooked the harbor and shipyard that were the heart of Zagosur's wealth and power. The silvery sea light, diffuse and pale, illuminated the chamber through the generous glass, making the candle flames in the sconces seem wan.

Half a dozen men were present, but Cazaril's eye had no trouble picking out the Fox and his son. At seventy-odd, the roya of Ibra was stringy, balding, the russet hair of his younger days reduced to a wispy fringe of white around his pate. But he remained vigorous, not fragile with his years, alert and relaxed in his cushioned chair. The tall youth standing at his side had the straight brown Darthacan hair of his late mother, though tinged with reddish highlights, worn just long enough to cushion a helmet, cut bluntly. He looks healthy, at least. Good... His sea-green vest-cloak was set with hundreds of pearls in patterns of curling surf, which made it swing in elegant, weighty ripples when he turned toward these new visitors.

The man standing on the Fox's other side was proclaimed by his chain of office to be the chancellor of Ibra. A wary and intimidated-looking fellow, he was the—from all reports, overworked—servant of the Fox, not a rival for his power. Another man's badges marked him as a sea lord, an admiral of Ibra's fleet.

Cazaril went to one knee before the Fox, not too ungracefully despite his saddle-stiffness and aches, and bowed his head. "My lord, I bring sad news from Ibra of the death of Royse Teidez, and urgent letters from his sister the Royesse Iselle." He proffered Iselle's letter of his authority.

The Fox cracked the seal, and scanned rapidly down the simple penned lines. His brows climbed, and he glanced back keenly at Cazaril. "Most interesting. Rise, my lord Ambassador," he murmured.

Cazaril took a breath, and managed to surge back to his feet without having either to push off the floor with his hand or, worse, catch himself on the roya's chair. He looked up to find Royse Bergon staring hard at him, his lips parted in a frown. Cazaril blinked, and favored him with a tentative nod and smile. He was quite a well-made young man, withal, even-featured, perhaps handsome when he wasn't scowling so. No squint, no hanging lip—a little stocky, but fit, not fat. And not forty. Young, clean-shaven, but with a vigor in the shadow on his chin that promised he was grown to virility. Cazaril thought Iselle should be pleased.

Bergon's stare intensified. "Speak again!" he said.

"Excuse me, my lord?" Cazaril stepped back, startled, as the royse stepped forward and circled him, his eyes searching him up and down, his breath coming faster.

"Take off your shirt!" Bergon demanded suddenly.

"What?"

"Take off your shirt, take off your shirt!"

"My lord—Royse Bergon—" Cazaril was thrown back in memory to the ghastly scene engineered by dy Jironal to slander him to Orico. But there were no sacred crows here in Zagosur to rescue him. He lowered his voice. "I beg you, my lord, do not shame me in this company."

"Please, sir, a year and more ago, in the fall, were you not rescued from a Roknari galley off the coast of Ibra?"

"Oh. Yes... ?"

"Take off your shirt!" The royse was practically dancing, circling around him again; Cazaril felt dizzy. He glanced at the Fox, who looked as baffled as everyone else, but waved his hand curiously, endorsing the royse's peculiar demand. Confused and frightened, Cazaril complied, popping the frogs of his tunic and slipping it off together with his vest-cloak, and folding the garments over his arm. He set his jaw, trying to stand with dignity, to bear whatever humiliation came next.

"You're Caz! You're Caz!" Bergon cried. His frown had changed to a demented grin. Ye gods, the royse was mad, and after all this pelting gallop over plain and mountain, unfit for Iselle after all—

"Why, yes, so my friends call me—" Cazaril's words were choked off as the royse abruptly flung his arms around him, and nearly lifted him off his feet.

"Father," Bergon cried joyously, "this is the man! This is the man!"

"What," Cazaril began, and then, by some trick of angle and shift of voice, he knew. Cazaril's own gape turned to grin. The boy has grown! Roll him back a year in time and four inches in height, erase the beard-shadow, shave the head, add a peck of puppy fat and a blistering sunburn... "Five gods," he breathed. "Danni? Danni!"